Tejohn’s wife and children would never see him again, and they would never know how he died. Someone touched him and he screamed again. The pain, once increased, never subsided. Should he answer this question? Did he know the answer? Did it even matter any more?
“My king,” the first voice said. “He’s still too damaged to get trustworthy information from him. He should have more time on the sleepstone. Then, when the pain begins again, he will tell all.”
“The man is a traitor to his family, his lands, and his king. To me! I don’t want to see him hale and hearty. I want to see him crippled.” The pressure against Tejohn’s shattered leg stopped, but the pain did not. When the king spoke next, his voice sounded very close. “The spikes outside Ussmajil are decorated with the heads of Italga bureaucrats, but you will never be so lucky. You will spend the rest of your days in darkness, alive but broken. For what you have cost me, for the attempt to steal my uncle’s glory, for entering my lands like an assassin, no man’s pain will last as long as yours.”
He was so close that Tejohn could have crushed his throat with a sudden blow, except Tejohn could not even turn his head.
Hands grabbed him roughly and lifted him up. The pain was so intense that he blacked out.
He awoke in utter darkness, feeling himself swaying and jolting as though floating through turbulent waters. After a moment of panic, he realized that someone had placed him on a litter and lifted him off the sleepstone. Why could he see nothing? Had the Finstel’s interrogator blinded him?
Someone hissed at him to be quiet. He pressed his parched lips shut, only then realizing he had groaned in pain and fear. Fire and Fury, did they expect him to go meekly to his own execution?
But that seemed wrong, somehow. He didn’t believe Finstel torturers would work in hushed, hurried secrecy. “What--”
“Ssss,” the voice said. “This is the only chance at rescue you will get, so be silent.”
Tejohn was carried up a long stair, but he could see none of it and knew he wouldn’t have recognized his surroundings even if a lantern had been lit. Someone had wrapped a cloth beneath his neck to brace his head. A rescue? He didn’t believe it. This was some trick Finstel had arranged to bring him hope and then steal it away again.
It’s what Tejohn would have done. Pull the injured prisoner off a sleepstone when he was almost healed. The darkness and pain would keep him disoriented, and he might spill his secrets to his pretend rescuers.
Except Tejohn didn’t have any secrets. At least, none that would interest the Finstel king. Did Shunzik really care about the rightful heir of Peradain? Or the ring he’d given to Tejohn that proved he was regent over the empire?
He felt his hard litter slide onto a long wooden platform. A woman leaned close to his ear and whispered, “This next part will be painful, but if you make any noise at all, you will doom everyone in this cabinet.”
He didn’t believe it for a second, but he played along. As long as he didn’t allow himself to hope, they could only inflict physical pain.
Someone placed a box over his head. A rough wooden notch had been cut on one side so the edge would not press against his throat, and he could feel the raw splinters against his skin. Then, someone began to dump something over his body. Fire and Fury, how it hurt.
The smell flooded through the slats in the box and he knew what they were piling over him: garbage. His stomach soured and grew tight; he tried not to breathe through his nose, but it did no good. Tejohn imagined rot seeping into open wounds on his legs and felt his despair grow stronger.
He welcomed it. The weight of the garbage on his ruined body pressed against him, making his pain swell, but he kept silent. Let it happen. Let it all happen. The days when he could have affected his world were long past. Let death come.
Soon, he felt wheels rolling heavily down a rough dirt ramp. He’d been placed on a cart, not a platform. Every jolt against a stone or rut was like white fire through his legs and back, but he clenched his teeth and kept silent. The box blocked his view of his surroundings, of course, but he felt a cool, wet breeze blow through the slats against his face. Outside. Had he really been taken outside the holdfast? There was no light to suggest daytime, but somewhere, he felt a spark of hope. Perhaps he really was being rescued after all…
He swept that thought away with a wave of self-loathing.
The sound of voices startled Tejohn so much, he almost cried out. Someone was scolding someone else, and that someone else was responding with weary assurance. Tejohn couldn’t make out specific words, but it sounded like a conversation they’d had many times before, probably over some obscure rule. The cart didn’t even stop completely while they spoke, only slowed a bit, then resumed its normal thumping pace.
Downhill they went. Always downhill. After a long while, Tejohn could no longer resist the urge to believe he was truly being rescued, although it began to dawn on him that a rescue now, while he was still a broken man, would leave him crippled. Better to have slid a knife between his ribs or dosed him with poison.
Maybe the people involved in this rescue were no friendlier to him than the Finstels. He felt himself wavering between hope and despair like a slender stalk in a storm. If he could have emptied himself of one or the other, he would have. Monument sustain me.
Eventually, the downhill slope became so steep that the weight of the garbage piled atop his legs shifted against him, and it took all his willpower not to cry out. Then he heard the scrape of a wooden shovel against the wooden planks of the cart, followed shortly by a splash. They were shoveling the garbage off--
Before the thought had even finished, a shovel struck against his knee, and the flare of pain was so great he had no hope of remaining silent. His cry echoed inside the box, and no sooner had he stifled it than someone had snatched the box off of his head.
“You Fire-taken fool,” a woman said, her voice low and harsh. “Don’t thump a broken man’s broken body!”
Tejohn was absurdly grateful that he was not the fool, but there was no apology forthcoming. He looked up at the night sky, as bright with stars as he’d ever seen. Laoni had once described it as a vast array of pinprick lights, sparse in some places, clustered in others. Tejohn was too nearsighted see that himself.
To him, the starlit night was a blur of darkness and gray light, and it was beautiful. Laoni had always thought it was sad that he could not truly appreciate stars or mountain ranges, but for Tejohn, this was enough. He’d seen one more night sky before the end of his life, and he hoped his wife and children, hiding far away in the east, slept peacefully beneath it.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.
A pair of men hurried to the cart. One took hold of the litter handles beside his head and slid him off, letting the garbage fall off him. The second wiped the far end clean, then took hold.
Tejohn tried to look at the nearest man, but it was too dark to see anything but silhouettes. All he could see of the man’s face was a fringe of unkempt hair. They carried him down the muddy river bank with extraordinary care; if one of them slipped, he would certainly drown like a helpless babe.
He wanted to turn, if only to see how close the water was, but the bundled cloth still held his head in place. The footsteps of the two men as they waded into the water sounded as loud as shouting in the cool night air, but the shovel loads of garbage helped mask the noise.
“Hold your breath,” the man beside his head whispered, and Tejohn barely had time to inhale before he was lowered into the current.
Great Way, it was cold, and that cold was so welcome. His pain did not vanish but it did ease. A hand brushed at his chest and legs, and he realized they were cleaning the garbage off of him.
Then he was raised into the air again. Someone sliced at his tunic--not his, he thought, something the Finstel torturers had put on him--and pulled it out from beneath him. Fire and Fury, that brought his pain back again, but before he could make his displeasure known, he was plunged under aga
in, before he could take a decent breath. This time, he thought he would drown.
They lifted him out of the water and carried him to the bank. There was another quiet conversation, but without the box, he could hear it clearly.
“Thank you. We will not forget what you’ve done.”
“And we will not forget the debt you owe us.” Tejohn recognized that voice as the woman who had not called him a fool.
“As ever,” the first man said. “Come.”
The litter was borne up the riverbank into a street. Tejohn could still only see directly upward, but the eaves above him showed that they traveled narrow alleyways rather than broad streets.
Always they were silent. Once, the man holding the foot end of the litter slipped in something, and the shift gave Tejohn a jolt of pain so powerful that he gasped. No one criticized him. No one apologized. They simply kept going.
When they finally went indoors, they entered a great open passage with no door on it. The roof was a broad stone laid across two columns, and the walls were unadorned. It took only a moment for Tejohn to realize that he had been carried across the threshold of a temple, and that he had not said a prayer.
“Grateful am I,” he croaked, “to be permitted to travel The Way.”
The man holding the head end of the litter glanced down at him, but Tejohn could not see his expression.
They carried him through a doorway, down a long stone stair, then through another doorway and across a room filled with loud snores and gentle whispers. People, Tejohn thought. Probably refugees.
Soon, they came to a stone room deep within the earth. The dungeon of the Finstel holdfast had a dirt floor, but even the secret rooms of the temple were made of stone. That pleased Tejohn for some reason he wasn’t ready to understand.
The litter was set on the floor and the bearers left. Someone lit a lantern, and the unexpected glow of it made Tejohn catch his breath. Light was as welcome as an old friend.
“Drink this,” a man said. The fellow gently lifted Tejohn’s face and pressed a cup of water to his lips. Great Way, it was so good!
He drank as much as he was permitted, but it was slow. Very slow. The man was dressed as a priest, with a robe the color of fresh blood and the mild, flabby face of someone who does little more than sweep. He was old, possibly the oldest fellow Tejohn had seen in his life, with outsized ears and nose, and deep, deep wrinkles down the side of his face.
“That is better, yes?” the priest said.
“Yes.” Tejohn’s voice had begun to sound normal again. The cup was refilled and offered again.
“You must wonder why we freed you,” the old man said. “I would, if I were you. Let me explain: it is the duty of the Temple to care for the people, and it is impossible to care for them if we do not know what ailments they suffer. Am I clear? You have been abroad in the world, Tyr Tejohn Treygar. You have attended the councils of kings and have traveled with the meanest of refugees. What’s more, you have met our foe in battle.”
The priest paused, as though he expected an answer. Tejohn only pursed his lips toward the cup. He was given more to drink.
“It is not just the fall of Peradain that worries us.” The old man sounded profoundly tired. “Rumors suggest that the demon Kelvijinian stirs in the eastern mountains, and Boskorul rounds the Indregai peninsula toward the Bay of Stones. These are troubled times, my tyr. We would know what you know.”
The cup was empty. “And why should I tell you anything?” Tejohn croaked.
Someone nearby gasped and muttered unhappily. His litter bearers? “We did just save you from King Shunzik’s torture chamber at no small risk to ourselves.”
“It seems to me that it was the servants’ cabinet that took all the risk. You were just the ones who prompted them. And for all I know, this is a Finstel trick.”
The old priest looked at Tejohn with an expression of unabashed surprise. Then he filled the cup again and raised it to Tejohn’s lips. “You are a cautious man. I respect that. Song knows, you have little reason to trust any within Finstel lands. We must, perhaps, do more to earn your favor. Do you see where we have brought you? We know your vision is poor, but surely you can see that far?”
The priest nodded toward the other side, but Tejohn couldn’t turn his head to see. The priest tilted it for him.
Great Way, it was a sleepstone. Somehow, this temple had a sleepstone hidden deep inside it.
“Always, we have a terrible need to heal those who can not afford to pay Finstel prices. Right now, they must wait for you.”
“Sir,” one of the litter-bearers said, “his wounds are too old.”
The old man nodded. “I was afraid of that.” He drew something from inside his robe. It was a long steel needle. “My tyr, have you seen one of these before?”
Tejohn was about to say no, but then he recognized it. “In Samsit, when I was healed on the sleepstone, the medical scholar jabbed my knee before I lay down.”
The priest seemed pleased. “Ah, yes, to remedy an old injury, yes? Something that went unhealed for too long and caused lingering pain? I regret to tell you that the new injuries you suffered are the same. They will never heal correctly unless they are renewed.”
“No,” Tejohn croaked, but hadn’t he allowed a medical scholar to do the same thing to him? And what choice did he have?
“It will all be for the best, I assure you. Before we start, look at the lantern hanging on that wall, if you would, my tyr.”
Tejohn tilted his head back as far as he could and looked “upward” in the direction the priest was pointing. There was no light source visible; was the man pointing out an unlit lamp?
Then there was a sharp exhalation from one of the litter-bearers, and Tejohn felt some sort of grit fall into his eyes.
Immediately, they began to burn. He blinked at them, trying to let his tears wash away whatever the men had blown onto him, but the tears only made the pain worse. He cried out, unable to raise his arms or his legs, as his eyes began to feel slimy and scorched.
“It will only hurt for a short while,” the old priest said, and someone began to plunge the needle into him.
It was a long time before they put him onto the sleepstone and allowed unconsciousness to claim him, but when he awoke, the entire world was new.
Chapter 3
The water was brutally cold. Any satisfaction Cazia felt when the carapace of the Tilkilit warrior cracked beneath her weight was spoiled by the icy shock of her plunge.
Save us! We’re going to swim to the northern bank. Send help! Cazia’s heart wasn’t in the game any more, and she doubted the queen would be fooled much longer. She waited for some sort of response--a scream of rage, a wave of hatred that would make her black out and drown--but if the Tilkilit queen knew what was happening, she was silent.
Always try to stand in a current. Right. Cazia pulled her heels up to her rear end and rolled onto her back. Her hiking skirts were already soaked through but the water was fast and turbulent enough that it pitched her above the surface where she could gasp for air.
Cazia had expected the warriors to attack from the banks and the tree trunk, but now that she was in the water, she had no idea if they were. The river was so loud and churning so crazily that a full-grown okshim could have fallen in beside her and she wouldn’t have known. She swept by something huge and unyielding--she didn’t touch it, but she felt the way it broke the river’s flow--then sank deep into the turbulent waters.
There was no choice; Cazia stripped off her jacket. Her Fire-taken skirts ought to go, too, but the knots would be impossible. She kicked off her boots and struggled to the surface.
As soon as she reached the air, the water swept southward around a bend and grew calm. She’d survived, somehow, despite everything. Elation rushed through her, then panic. Ivy! Where was Ivy!
Cazia kicked, raising herself as high out of the water as she could. There was Ivy, floating downstream with Kinz. They were shoulder to shoulder, leaning back a
s if lounging on a couch. Cazia resolved to do the same.
After one glance behind her, of course. She couldn’t resist one glance.
The fallen tree was out of sight behind the stones and trees at the bend of the river, but there was something back there. Cazia squinted toward the northern bank and saw something moving in high, bounding arcs. The Tilkilit were coming after them.
Cazia rolled over and kicked toward Ivy and Kinz. They were only twenty or thirty feet ahead, but she couldn’t close the distance. Worse, the effort was exhausting.
“They’re coming!” she yelled, a splash of river water garbling the words and nearly choking her. She lay back, her legs stretched in front of her, the way Kinz and Ivy were, while the older girl turned to look at their pursuers.
The Tilkilit were fast, but they didn’t have stamina. If the girls stayed afloat for long enough, they would outpace the warriors and be free.
As long as they didn’t drown. As long as they didn’t freeze. As long as they weren’t thrown over a waterfall or—Great Way, keep us on your path—swept out to sea.
No. Cazia drove those thoughts from her mind. They would escape or they would die. She was not going to fall under the Tilkilit’s power again.
So, escape. As the river turned eastward again around a massive boulder, she began to plot out their next move. Assuming all three of them survived, they would have no food, no clean water but what she could conjure, no way to make a fire except by her magic. Their clothes would be soaked through and they would have no weapons. Not even knives, Monument sustain her. Her dart spell would work on stones and wooden stakes, if it came to that, and she hoped it wouldn’t. Kinz, accustomed to her flint hatchet, would probably be satisfied with a sharpened stick.
But they would need to find another column of vines that went as close to the top of the Northern Barrier as possible, and then they would need to make their way back down. Of course, if they could find the tunnel she dug on the way in, that would be best.
The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way Page 3